WASHINGTON — Several parents of soldiers killed in Iraq visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to ask for congressional hearings on the Downing Street
memo, which one mother called President Bush’s “Watergate.”

Critics say the document, which contains minutes from a meeting in July 2002 between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and top aides, shows that Bush
was determined to go to war with Iraq and ignored evidence that showed the country had no weapons of mass destruction. www.estripes.com...

Already the smoke screens are being blown at us. You have clowns out there like former CIA director and NeoCon James Woolsey out there trying to
confuse simple meanings of speech regarding the memos. How

Clintonesque.

Fixed Is Fixed

by Ray McGovern

Enter Washington insider and neoconservative favorite James Woolsey, the former director of Central Intelligence, who just a few days after 9/11
called publicly for war on Iraq. Rhodes Scholar Woolsey told MSNBC's Hardball Tuesday night that he is not clear on British usage of the word
"fixed." Woolsey argued that what Blair was told by the UK's intelligence chief does not mean that Washington was "cooking the books." Since
there is no basis for that allegation, says Woolsey, "We ought to back off a bit."

To this bit of absurdity, one Brit sez:

"Nobody that I have come across here in London interprets the term 'fixed' in this context as other than cooked/manipulated/selected. Fixed
refers to trickery-as in 'the fix is in.' What Woolsey & Co. may think … that is completely irrelevant. It is what we British think that counts.
The memo was written to be read by us British, not by Woolsey. It appears that he and his 'neoconservative' friends are getting a bit desperate. He
would probably be one of the people to go to jail at the end of this, given the key role he has played." www.antiwar.com...

I remember the fear, helplessness and pride in my mother's eyes when I said good-bye before deploying to Operation Desert Shield. She would have been
devastated if I had died or been maimed and finding out that the claims used to justify the invasion were fraudulent.

The way it went down, if I had died, I think she would have been able to handle it knowing how I felt about what we were doing. I wrote her a letter
right before the fireworks started explaining why she should not cry for me if I died. She actually took it to our paper's editor. That letter was my
first published piece. It was kind of embarassing, tho.

Jonathan Freedland (Yes, they did lie to us, June 22) is right to call for a full investigation into the lies we were told to take us to war. Our
loved ones gave their lives in the service of this country. They all died in the Iraq war. When they went to that war they believed they were being
sent to defend our country. They were told it was their duty to disarm the Saddam regime of its weapons of mass destruction. When enlisting,
servicemen and women sign an oath of allegiance to her majesty's government. All they ask in return is that their government acts in an honourable,
truthful and responsible manner, and only deploys troops into the theatre of war to risk their lives when absolutely necessary.
We now believe our prime minister, Tony Blair, misled the people of this country as to the true reasons for the war in Iraq. We believe there was no
serious evidence for WMD. We also believe that the assurances given by the attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, as to the legality of the war are highly
questionable. This is why we are calling for an independent public inquiry into the decision to go to war. We must restore accountability to public
life. Our loved ones deserve justice and the people of this country deserve the truth. www.guardian.co.uk...

Thankfully for you and your family, you must not have seen much of the underbelly of it. Or maybe they do not want to face the fact that they were
lied to.

So many troops are coming home maimed. Probably ruined for life. And they their lives are never the same. On top of that, they are so quickly
forgotten. Not to mention the fact that they now realized there was major smoke blown up their butts.

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